République

Bonjour from gay Paris!! Took the Eurostar through the Chunnel and 2 hours later... v'oila! Staying at an awesome apartment on the top (6th) floor of a quintessentially Parisian street in Republique. It was an early 5am London start, so troops were in fatigue mode, but nothing that an hour of PubG Mobile couldn't fix.

Revived, we mastered the Paris Metro to stroll along Champs-Élysées and climb up the Arc de Triomph. Whole lotta stairs! Think we better get used to that here. The views were worth it!

FRIDAY:
Playing tourist in Paris is so easy!

I'm losing track of days, but no matter. Had a stroll through Nortre Dame cathedral and walked around Left Bank after, admiring the art. The boys chose a few Paris posters to add to their growing collection of cityscapes. Found a park to sit in and have a gelato while listening to a pop-up high school choir with amazing voices sing weird ditties about Ireland that stuck in my head for too long after. Later that night & at the end of our street, we strolled along Canal St Martin, a fantastic long waterway that snakes through Republique. At night everybody emerges with a glass of wine and sits on the edge of the canal for a few drinks. Some people bring instruments and there is spontaneous dancing. Fun vibe.

Yesterday was 'epic.' We went to the Louvre and walked until our legs hurt. With 5 floors of art, you just can't possibly. However, we saw Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the oldest known sculpture (almost 9,000 years old), mummies, sphinxes... A lot of the French paintings in particular had written histories giving a context around the painting. That was awesome. Napoleon was quite vain.

Exhausted with tourist fatigue we came home via the local boulangerie which has the best tarts ever! Jesse cooked a vegetarian spaghetti with salad, which we had on the balcony. Spontaneously a huge band started playing on the street below. Within hours more bands popped up, and dancing crowds filled the streets. Drum bands, orchestras... all funky music!! We got our second wind and went out to explore- which culminated in a 11:00pm Eiffel Tower visit! The views of Paris at night were awesome, and they put the sparkly lights on! Rather cold at the top, so hot Nutella crepes after were yummy!!

The train home was packed with revellers. Happy, drunk Parisians singing loudly. It kept the boys awake & amused long enough to get home. The street party was still going strong (turns out it was a Midsummer festival of music), but we had no problems falling asleep!Read more